


crystalline mountains and elegant birds

by terrifier



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Claustrophobia, Gen, Post-Episode: s09e11 Heaven Sent, Post-Episode: s09e12 Hell Bent, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:14:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22301647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terrifier/pseuds/terrifier
Summary: The Doctor is claustrophobic, as the others soon find out.
Comments: 19
Kudos: 152





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Idk, it just came to me. First fic for the Thirteenth Doctor.

The events had taken an unexpected turn, Graham decided. The Doc had taken them all to a lovely little planet that she'd claimed was in a forgotten corner of some faraway galaxy.

It had seemed nice enough to Graham, and Ryan and Yaz seemed to be enjoying themselves. The Doctor had, had a smile on her face too. Lately, she'd been a bit moody, ever since that whole thing with that Master bloke. It was almost impossible to get her out of her brooding mood ever since then, but when she'd landed them on their current planet, something beginning with a 'G', she'd seemed relaxed and happier.

But then things had gone downhill fairly quickly. It was like Graham had blinked and all of a sudden they were being carted off to some specialised prison for people who disrespected the planet's equivalent of the Queen. 

According to the guards, tripping in the courtyard was an offence punishable by life in prison. Unfortunately, Ryan had tripped on a slab that had been sticking up. It had been an accident, yet the guards had said that accident or not, there was no excuse for clumsiness in the Queen's courtyard.

Not even an hour later and the group of time travellers found themselves in their own rather small cages, all side by side. Ryan and Graham were in the middle, with the Doctor and Yaz on the ends. Yaz was to Ryan's right and the Doctor was to Graham's left.

The cages were made of something clear like glass, but apparently, ten times stronger as Ryan had kicked it several times but it hadn't budged. Yaz had resigned herself for the moment, having sat down in annoyance within the first five minutes. Graham had decided to eat his cheese and pickle sandwich, his stomach beginning to grumble.

Strangely enough, the Doctor had been silent. She had been staring at the opposing glass-like wall for the past fifteen minutes, leaning against the wall behind her. Graham couldn't be completely sure, but it looked like her breathing had started to pick up too. It seemed, Graham realised slowly, that she was beginning to panic.

Having never dealt with anyone experiencing a panic attack, only having ever experienced them himself before when going through chemo, Graham wrapped his half-eaten sandwich back up and replaced it in his pocket. He shuffled closer to the window separating himself and the Doctor and tapped on it gently, trying to gain her attention. 

"Doc?" He prompted.

Expectedly, there was no response from her. Her lips were parted slightly and her right hand was clenching and unclenching.

Being the first one to speak in a few minutes, he gained Ryan and Yaz's attention, the duo looking up and over at him. They both peered around him, trying to spot the Doctor and though he wanted to hide her from view until she'd calmed down a bit, they could see her anyway so he remained where he was.

"What's wrong with her?" Ryan asked.

Before Graham could say anything, Yaz did. 

"I think she's having a panic attack. Is she claustrophobic?" She asked as she rose to her feet.

Ryan and Graham shrugged, unsure.

Truthfully, Graham couldn't see this mad, genius, dauntless woman being afraid of small spaces, especially when she could see out of them, but he supposed it wasn't so far fetched. Anyone could be claustrophobic, he supposed.

"Do something, gramps," Ryan ordered.

"Like what?" Graham rebutted. "I've never done this before."

"Talk to her," Yaz said, "it might help."

Reluctantly, Graham turned back to see the Doctor. She was no longer leant against the wall, instead standing in the middle of her own cell and swaying lightly on the spot. 

However, before he could get a word in edgewise, something happened. In a portrayal of unusual violence and irrationality, the Doctor lashed out, swinging her fist at the opposing wall. There was a loud noise, the result of her fist clashing with the glass wall.

"Woah!" Ryan exclaimed as Yaz yelped in surprise.

"Bleedin' hell!" Graham startled.

None of their exclamations were enough to stop the Doctor, though, as she punched the wall again. And again. And again.

It didn't look like she was going to stop, so Graham banged on the wall separating them, desperate to get their attention. 

Blood was starting to gather on the wall around the beginnings of spiderweb cracks. Despite the sign of an escape starting to form, Graham didn't want her to cause any more harm to herself.

"Hey, Doc, stop it! Come on now," he tried, desperately, "come on, you can do it. Just listen to my voice, Doc, come on."

The Doctor stumbled back from the wall, as though pushed and thudded against the back wall before sliding down it and drawing her knees up to her chest. She put her head in her hands, taking in big, shaking lungfuls of air whilst muttering about birds and mountains, and someone called Clara.

He felt helpless. He never thought he'd see the day when this dauntless woman in front of him was reduced to nothing but a trembling, crying heap on the floor whilst neither he, Ryan, or Yaz could help. 

Slowly, mindful of his creaky knees, he crouched down beside her and placed a hand to the glass, hoping she would see it or sense his presence, even. 

A sigh escaped him and he shook his head.

"You're gonna give me a heart attack at this rate, Doc," he muttered to himself.


	2. Chapter 2

Only a couple more times did the Doctor lash out and punch the walls. She stopped when something broke, the sound reverberating throughout each of their cells. Though she must've been in pain, the Doctor merely slumped to the ground and used a loose piece of stone from the floor of her cell to scribble equations and words the fam didn't understand into the floor.

As the could do nothing to stop her from lashing out, the fam were forced to sit back and attempt to calm her with their words. It mostly worked as had calmed down considerably in the few hours they'd been locked up, but they couldn't help but still worry. 

She hadn't said a word to any of them since before getting locked up. Any words that left her mouth were to herself and none of it made sense. It was all about birds and crystal mountains, and other confusing gibberish. Admittedly, most of what the Doctor said was gibberish to the fam, but this literally made no sense.

It was only after almost four hours when the guards finally came back that the Doctor made a move to acknowledge anyone but herself. It was a relief to the fam.

The guards let them our fairly quickly after admitting that they'd realised their mistake arresting them. They suggested the group of travellers leave the planet, though, just to avoid anymore mistakes in the future. 

The Doctor thanked them and then led the fam out of the small jail, then back to the TARDIS. 

None of the group said a word on the way, all seemingly agreeing to a pact of silence.

When the made it back to the TARDIS, the Doctor set the course for the vortex and then all too soon they were floating through space, still in silence.

Graham watched his alien friend as she wandered around the console more carefully than he'd ever seen her move before.

He wanted to speak up and say something, to ask if she was all right, but before he could do so, she beat him to it.

"Sorry, fam," she said, "didn't expected us to get arrested."

"What was that, Doc?" Graham couldn't help but ask. "In the cell?"

"Are you claustrophobic, Doctor?" Yaz asked.

The Doctor seemed to freeze at the console, her hand hovering over what looked like a faucet (Graham couldn't figure out its purpose for the life of him), then resumed motion, continuing to walk.

"I didn't used to be," the Doctor answered Yaz.

"What happened?" Ryan questioned.

Graham could see the hesitation on the Doctor's face as she seemingly decided whether or not she should answer them.

In the end, it looked like she was going to as she sighed heavily and stopped moving around the console to face them all.

"I suppose it was a long time ago, now," she said, "but there were some people who thought I held the information they wanted. They were wrong, of course, but they thought I did."

"What did they do?" Graham couldn't help but wonder.

"They trapped me in my own confession dial for four billion years," the Doctor shrugged as if it were no big deal but Graham could tell she was hurt if her eyes were anything to go by. They were older than Graham had ever seen them before.

"Four billion years?" Yaz blurted out in disbelief.

"What's a confession dial?" Ryan asked.

"A confession dial is basically the last will and testament of a Time Lord. I sent mine to best friend when I thought I was going to die and, long story short, the Time Lords trapped me in it for, yes, Yaz, four billion years," the Doctor said. "I was trapped with something made up of one of my deepest fears and, to escape, I punched my way through of a wall made of azbantium. Which is probably why I tried to punch my way through that cell."

There was a lot in that admission for Graham to unpack he didn't even know where to begin. Did he start on the four billion years or the deepest fear part?

"Doc, I'm sorry, that sounds horrible," Graham said.

"Don't worry about it, Graham," the Doctor told him flippantly, "like I said, it happened a long time ago. I didn't even know I was claustrophobic until now. So, who's up for another adventure? What about Barcelona? The planet, obviously."

Though Graham wanted to further pursue the issue, he knew he wouldn't get anymore out of her now that she seemed to have moved on so he reluctantly nodded and smiled encouragingly.

"Sure, sounds good, Doc," he said. 

**Author's Note:**

> I've only had a panic attack once and though it was a long time ago now, i can still remember most of it, though I'm not sure what spurred it on or how it got into a state of panic so i wrote this from graham's pov rather than the doctor's as i originally planned.


End file.
